Graduation Day

Jamie

June 9

Friday, June 8
I'll divide this long day into three parts:

Morning: arrival
It's a forty-five–minute drive from the hotel to Naval Station Great Lakes, and we wanted to be there when they opened the gates, so we got up very early yet again. The schedule in my itinerary says …

6:30am RTC gate opens to guests
7:00am ceremonial drill hall doors open to guests
8:45am all guests must be seated.

We'd heard from Jesse to sit on the right side of the dais. (The reason for this would become evident later, to our delight.) Then he told us that all the graduates had to go to the NEX (Naval Exchange, a store, where we'd do more shopping) to pick up their graduation photos and other papers. So we should meet him there after the ceremony.

Katie and I had dressed up, of course. We hadn't even conferred. We just both put on dresses. Not all families did, and that's OK. We are all proud and happy Americans on a day like this. We enjoyed just kind of hanging around outside looking at all the other folks excited to see their about-to-graduate loved one after several weeks. There were all types of folks from all walks of life. It was so moving. A really special feeling. It's hard for me to articulate, honestly.

Finally we went in, grabbed seats. There were sailors—at a relaxed attention (I don't know the correct terminology)—stationed about every twenty feet along the bleachers, just keeping an eye on us, sometimes answering questions or helping someone get to an open seat. At some point, up in a second floor of seats not being used, we saw a group of sailors come in—and Jesse was among them. It was the recruit band! So this was why he told us to sit on that end, but they literally sat "at attention," staring straight ahead, the whole time. No smiling, no waving.

I can't remember now if they brought all the graduates in first, but I think so. They were announced by state of origin, and they slow marched in very solemnly. It seemed like a large group—339 men and women—but we were told in the introductory remarks, actually, that this was a small class.

Middle: the ceremony
So here they were, all in this makeshift auditorium. Then the band that is actually stationed at the base* marched in and played some songs. While we were paying attention to that, the recruit band moved from its little hideaway at the end of the building down to the floor. And then they marched in as the base band marched out. Oh, my goodness: Jesse was the drum major. It was our first up-close look at him—and he was so skinny! Katie and I looked at each other, our eyes wide.

Remember, Jesse was older than most of the recruits and he'd been recruited directly into the Navy Fleet band; the musicians marching behind him were just kids who'd been in a high school band somewhere and had been asked if they'd do this small thing. All of them were going to graduate today. They played a song or two, then took their places among the group of graduates.

See the little bit of tuba on the far left?

There were speeches of all sorts. And there were some interesting things about this graduation that don't always happen at all of them:

1) presence of an admiral,
2) a 13-gun salute,
3) it was a small class, as I've mentioned, and
4) it was the 76th anniversary of the battle of Midway

The 13-gun salute was for the admiral. And the admiral was there to talk about Midway, because, as Wikipedia tells us:

The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place 4–7 June 1942, six months after the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy under Admirals Chester W. Nimitz, Frank J. Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy. … The Battle of Midway has often been called "the turning point of the Pacific". It was the Allies' first major naval victory against the Japanese.

You've seen the flag-raising photo—it's immortal, for real. (Read this article and see if you don't get choked up.) I've seen (and photographed) the sculpture of this image in Washington DC. They have a big ceremony every year on the anniversary to honor the veterans of all branches who participated.

As I've noted, there were all walks of life at that graduation, and we were all of us choked up. Katie and I got teary about some old gentleman in the bleachers a couple people over and down from us who was wearing a USN (ret.) T-shirt, standing up and saluting. Later I was talking about the boot camp experience with a friend of mine, Marjorie Eastman, who is a highly decorated US Army veteran, and she told me this is what boot camp is intended to be. It brings people together from all walks of life.

When it was over, we followed the crowd to the NEX and stood outside, waiting, waiting, waiting … there were many joyful reunions. (I'm still choked up.) But where was Jesse?** He was one of the last to show up. We were standing out front, watching people come down the sidewalk, looking, looking … And we almost didn't recognize him, he was so thin! I recognized his walk, far down the sidewalk and told Katie, "Here he comes."

We got his photo and other materials, shopped for souvenirs (I bought a Navy challenge coin), and then left with our sailor!

Afternoon & evening: the visit
We went to Portillo's (Chicago-style hot dogs) for lunch first. The people of Chicago are clearly aware of the Navy's presence, because everywhere we went Jesse got smiles, thumbs-ups, and thank-yous. At Portillo's, an older gentleman working in the restaurant—clearly a longtime Chicagoland resident—saw him and said "Congratulations on your graduation!"

Then we went for coffee, and sat around chatting, hearing about Jesse's experiences and friends he'd made. Just one other married guy in the whole class, for example. Much later, as the sun was going down, we had dinner at Found Kitchen & Social House.***

One of the sweetest things about spending this time with Jesse definitely was the reaction of people to his uniform. The gentleman who bussed our table at Found, without making a big deal about it, leaned over and quietly said, "Thank you for your service." (That would happen a couple times at the airport too.) I was unable to tell Gerry about these instances on the phone without crying. Jesse told us—we had lots of time to chat—that he makes a lot of eye contact with people now. Those white uniforms really grab attention. And with his experience touring with the quintet, he's had lots of experience at being the center of attention. He says this was like nothing else, though. I hadn't realized how much of a "navy town" Chicago is. The locals know what's going on here. It's a very different world from when I was an air force brat: we always lived off-base and sometimes townie people looked down their noses at us. Add in disapproval of the Vietnam conflict at the time and things could be fraught.

It was a very, very good day. Albeit a long one: we were up at 4am; we had to have Jesse back to the base by 8pm, and were back at our hotel by 9:00. All of us were exhausted.

But we would see Jesse again in the morning at the airport to say goodbye as he went off to A-school in Norfolk.

*Remember, there's only nine US Navy bases in the world that maintain bands, in … Newport, Rhode Island; Norfolk, Virginia; Jacksonville, Florida; Chicago, Illinois; Seattle, Washington; San Diego, California; Honolulu, Hawaii; Yokosuka, Japan; and Naples, Italy.
**Putting up equipment in the band room, duh.
***The pandemic killed it, but now the place is called LeTour.